Author | Lightnews

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 17d

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 17d

👇🎯

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Internet Archive @archive.org · 17d

Nearly 30 years ago, Brewster wrote: “Our goal is to help people answer hard questions.”

That vision still drives the Internet Archive in 2025: building a reliable memory for a digital age that forgets too quickly.

#Wayback1T

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Internet Archive @archive.org · 17d

In 1996, Brewster Kahle wrote "Preserving the Internet" for Scientific American. Nearly 30 years later, it’s striking how many of his predictions about digital preservation came true—and how many challenges remain.

Let’s compare 1996 vs 2025 🧵

Page from March 1997 Scientific American featuring Brewster Kahle’s article 'Preserving the Internet.' Text describes the Internet Archive’s mission to save digital information. Includes a photo of a Smithsonian exhibit with 1996 U.S. election web memorabilia.

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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 17d

Cities are developing a new approach to developing housing: Integrating it into mixed-use library projects. These investments improve neighborhood vitality, add housing & improve services.

In new research @urbaninstitute.bsky.social, I create a database of such projects & point to success stories ⏬

Aging Libraries Could Offer Cities a Unique Opportunity to Build New Housing While Improving Public Services

Since 2000, more than 1,800 apartment units have been built in combined library-housing developments. These projects not only address local housing needs but…

www.urban.org

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Danielle Kurtzleben @titonka.bsky.social · 24d

Oh

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 25d

Trump's FCC yesterday voted to kill a program that provided free Wi-Fi to rural school kids at no cost to taxpayers, falsely claiming the program was "illegal" and was being used to "censor Conservative ideology."

FCC moves to end discounts for Wi-Fi hotspot lending and school bus connectivity

The Federal Communications Commission voted to end discounts for library and school Wi-Fi hotspot lending programs on Tuesday, drawing criticism from lawmakers and librarians who say the move will mak...

apnews.com

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Blake Emerson @blakeprof.bsky.social · 18d

Courtesy of Prof Bagenstos, the statutory provision is 31 USC 1341(c)(2)

(2) Each employee of the United States Government or of a District of Columbia public employer furloughed as a result of a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations, and each excepted employee who is required to perform work during a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for such work, at the employee's standard rate of pay, at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates, and subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse.

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Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · 22d

They could have perp walked Trump, multiple times, for multiple offenses. They could have convicted him in the Senate, as a bipartisan majority of senators voted to do. When you decide not to pursue justice, this is the result.

Adam Weinstein @adamweinstein.bsky.social · 22d

New reporting from MSNBC and @kendilanian-nbc.bsky.social: A source familiar with the matter confirms an FBI agent in the Washington field office has been fired for refusing to arrest and perp walk James Comey. Comey is being allowed to surrender for booking at his arraignment next week

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Jeff @rogue576.bsky.social · 20d

Have to agree and ask why didn't Biden do something when #SCOTUS said he had complete immunity.

Radical yes but we would not be in this fucked up position right now if Biden had his full faculties and understood the moment he was in.

There was a huge list that needed to go the Bolsonaro route.

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velourazure @velourazure.bsky.social · 21d

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wearing N95s when you're in public saves lives 🇵🇸 @masksaregood.myatproto.social · 20d

I always think of this quote (from They Knew by Sarah Kendzior) when people say this.

"'nobody saw it coming' is an admission of whom the speaker considers to be nobody"

Text from "They Knew" by Sarah Kendzior:

As I wrote in Hiding in Plain Sight, the oft-recited claim that
"nobody saw it coming" is an admission of whom the speaker considers to be nobody. In the United States, "nobody" historically included women, immigrants, poor people, and anyone who is not white. People dismissed as nobody are those most likely to be affected by a terrible situation and therefore the most likely to warn about it in advance. "Somebody" is a similarly convoluted category. For centuries, to be somebody in the United States meant to be a wealthy white man or to be treated like one. This idea of "somebody" is baked into the founding of the country, in which only white male landowners were granted the right to vote. White, land-owning men who deviated from the establishment were often punished for their efforts: castigated as troublemakers or conspiracy theorists. The goal was to reduce them, at least in their ability to gain institutional support, to the status of "nobody."

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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 19d

Really want to encourage libraries - especially school libraries - to put no-AI content into your collection development policy. At the very least, if you have a clause in there about requiring accurate information, you can use that to weed out or prevent genAI purchases.

Harlem Toots @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 19d

“When you get a suspicious book, “you look it up to see what else the [author] has written. And you see there's 30 things, and none of them have any reviews, and they were all written in the last two years,” DeMeester-Lane says.”

How Local Librarians Keep AI Slop Off the Shelves

AI is being used to create nonsensical, sometimes dangerously inaccurate books. Local librarians are tasked with keeping these volumes out of their collections.

www.governing.com

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Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 19d

It's a pretty big deal that the NYC Bar Association--one of the most prominent and respected bar associations in the country--is accusing the President of ordering the "unlawful summary execution," i.e. murder--of civilians in violation of US and international law. www.nycbar.org/press-releas...

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Mark Gongloff @markgongloff.bsky.social · 26d

Yet another good reason for locals to resist data centers: "electricity now costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas located near significant data center activity"

Gift link from @bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

www.bloomberg.com

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · Sep 23

AI is just microplastics for software. It's polluted every app and slowly killing them.

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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · Sep 23

Breaking character: Ken White has a fantastic post about how "free speech culture" undermines free speech. It's something I've thought about a lot before, but Ken knows way more about it than I do and explains it really well.

www.popehat.com/p/how-free-s...

How "Free Speech Culture" Is Killing Free Speech: Part One

Blurring The Lines Between Official Censorship And Individual Criticism Built The Intellectual Foundation For Trump's Assault On Free Expression

www.popehat.com

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Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · Sep 22

Thanks to the Texas Tribune for this comprehensive, fully reported account of the firing of the Texas A&M Instructor for teaching “gender ideology.”

www.texastribune.org/2025/09/19/t...

How a secret recording of a gender identity lecture upended Texas A&M

Officials have struggled to detail the exact reasons for the A&M professor’s termination, citing a technical issue with her course description. Faculty say the move was politically motivated.

www.texastribune.org

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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · Sep 23

Let’s be clear: What Donald Trump said in public, in plain view, on his own social media feed is more corrupt and dangerous than anything Richard Nixon was caught on tape saying in the White House tapes. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/rid-me-of-...

Rid me of this meddlesome priest, Pam!

How mob boss Trump sped through all of Watergate in just a single weekend.

www.doomsdayscenario.co

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · Sep 19

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history."
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Censorship Is the Authoritarian’s Dream

The right to free expression must include the right to say horrible and evil things.

www.insidehighered.com

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · Sep 20

I refused to placate the bully. Then I refused to placate the institutions who placated the bully. Then I refused to placate the shills who placate the institutions who placate the bully. I'm still standing; the rest are down.

Never placate the bully.

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · Sep 20

Many media outlets hid the full truth of Trump -- his background in organized crime, his Epstein ties -- out of fear, only to be obliterated by him in the end. Had they not self-censored then, they might not be state-censored now. When you hide the truth, you face the consequences.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · Sep 20

This moment is disturbing even in the mundane: I’ve started taking screenshots of historical sources I’m using in research from the national park service, the smithsonian, and the national archives, just in case they get taken down. It’s now a part of my process and takes time I have to plan for.

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · Sep 23

"There is no longer 'news' in the US: only speculation, propaganda in oligarch-run newspapers, dark money posts disguised as articles, the occasional well-researched but paywalled piece, and independent reporting blocked by algorithms."
sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/tunnel-vis...

Tunnel Vision

Do you remember September 9?

sarahkendzior.substack.com

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Brian Walter @bdwlecteur.bsky.social · Sep 5

Curiosity, Nabokov once wrote, is insubordination in its purest form. It is also, as @sarahkendzior.bsky.social shows, a means of moral and imaginative survival that becomes more crucial by the day. Highest recommendation! open.substack.com/pub/sarahken...

"The assault on university life is part of a broader authoritarian agenda. Fascists seek a society where people lack not only the motive to learn, but also the means. Alternative avenues of education — libraries, search engines, archives, museums — are being shut down or restructured to curtail access to knowledge. Curiosity and community are under attack." -- Sarah Kendzior, "The End Times of Academia"

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MST3Katie @mst3katie.bsky.social · Sep 5

This @sarahkendzior.bsky.social quote pops into my head every time I see liberals getting excited about Gavin Newsom

Powerbrokers pretend time is not a weapon, but a neutral or even positive force: a force that benefits the bereft by giving them hope. They pretend that hope is not a weapon either. But hope is the deadliest weapon when wielded for decades without sincere intent. Hope without deeds is an empty cup that turns, over time, into a poisoned one. It poisons the people who drink it, and it poisons the people who proffer it, as they serve it up again and again.

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